India Is Not a Democracy Under PM Narendra Modi: Global Report
India Is Not a Democracy Under PM Narendra Modi: Global Report
The electoral autocracy is a status given to those nations where some kind of fair or foul elections take place but the regimes in these nations deprive people of their fundamental rights.
By RMN News Service
A new global report has asserted that India under the rule of prime minister (PM) Narendra Modi continues to be an electoral autocracy and has lost its status of a democracy.
The electoral autocracy is a status given to those nations where some kind of fair or foul elections take place but the regimes in these nations deprive people of their fundamental rights.
The autocrats in these nations win elections by hook or by crook and then usurp all the institutions such as judiciary, parliament, election offices, law-enforcement agencies, and media outfits illegally.
It is being observed that the dictators – mostly with criminal records – in electoral autocracies squander national resources to unnecessarily import products and services from advanced nations and promote oligarchy.
As this is a kind of bribe to the world leaders, they turn a blind eye to the corruption and human rights abuses committed by the dictators in electoral autocracies.
The report was released on March 2, 2023 by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, which is managed by V-Dem Institute under the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
In India, according to the report, the ruling right-wing, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with PM Modi at the helm continues to suppress religious freedom and attack all institutions required for the survival of a democracy.
According to V-Dem data, 72% of the world’s population – 5.7 billion people – now live in electoral or closed autocracies. That is an increase from 46% ten years ago.
A plurality – 44% of the world’s population, or 3.5 billion people – reside in electoral autocracies, which include populous countries such as India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, The Philippines, and Türkiye.
In the most populous region, Asia and the Pacific, almost nine out of ten individuals – or 89% – reside in autocracies and are denied some or all democratic rights and freedoms. This includes closed autocracies such as China and electoral autocracies like India.
According to the V-Dem report, autocratization often goes beyond democratic weakening and breakdown to deepen even further after countries like El Salvador, Hungary, or India turn into electoral autocracies. Other autocracies that are autocratizing further include Burkina Faso, Philippines, and Russia.
Again, more than twice as many – nine countries – have declined substantially: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, The Philippines, and Thailand.
The process of autocratization seems to have slowed down considerably or even stalled in Hungary, India, Serbia, Thailand, and Türkiye but after turning into autocracies. All five remain autocracies.
The V-Dem report further says that political polarization is also escalating the most in autocratizing countries. Those countries witnessing the most dramatic increases include top autocratizers such as Afghanistan, Brazil, India, and Myanmar.
V-Dem provides a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections.
It distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles.
Note: The Indian government of prime minister (PM) Narendra Modi arrogantly rejects all the truthful global reports that reveal the failure or the autocracy of the Modi regime. Without offering any logical reasoning, the Modi government randomly claims that it is a global conspiracy to discredit Modi and his government.
